Own a (big) piece of history: NCDOT puts Ringling Bros. circus train cars up for sale
Three years ago, the state Department of Transportation bought nine railroad cars from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, thinking it would one day refurbish them and use them on the Piedmont passenger train between Raleigh and Charlotte.
Now NCDOT has put the cars up for sale, along with seven other old rail cars it has decided it no longer needs. All 16 cars are listed on an auction page on the State Surplus Property website, which will accept bids until 10 a.m. Jan. 4.
NCDOT paid $383,000 for the Ringling Bros. cars shortly after the circus gave its final performance in New York in 2017. The source of the cars might have been unusual but not the purchase itself, said Jason Orthner, director of NCDOT’s Rail Division.
NCDOT has always bought and refurbished used rail cars for the Piedmont; all 19 cars in the fleet now — 14 passenger cars and 5 baggage/cafe cars — were originally built in the 1950s and 1960s for other railroads, Orthner said. Seven of the 9 circus cars were built in 1964, while the other two are older.
No longer needed
Since buying the Ringling Bros. cars, the state has received two federal grants, totaling $157 million, that will allow it to buy six locomotives and 26 passenger cars, all new. It won’t need the circus train cars or some of the other used cars it bought with restoration in mind.
The timing of the surplus property sale was dictated by the General Assembly. A bill that overhauled NCDOT policies and spending, signed into law July 6, ordered the department to develop a plan for its fleet of rail cars by Nov. 1 and put those it doesn’t plan to rehab up for sale by Dec. 31.
Demand for used rail cars may be dampened by the coronavirus pandemic. Not only has the virus hurt the economy but it has reduced travel by mass transportation of all kinds, including airlines, city buses and subways, and commuter and intercity rail.
Before COVID-19, Amtrak and the state operated three round-trip Piedmont trains a day between Raleigh and Charlotte, with stops in Cary, Durham, Burlington, Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury and Kannapolis. That’s been pared down to two round-trips a day, in addition to the Carolinian, which runs between Charlotte and New York.
Minimum bids
The auction site lists a minimum bid of $45,000 for each of the circus train cars, except for a storage car that’s filled with various hand and shop tools. The opening bid for it is $55,000. The minimums for all nine cars come to $415,000, or $32,000 more than the state paid for them.
The minimum bids for the seven other cars the state is selling range from $9,000 to $200,000. The priciest was built for the U.S. Army as a hospital car in 1953 and was more recently used by CSX railroad as a training car. It has a galley with a refrigerator, two sleeping compartments and separate toilet and shower rooms.
Like the circus train, the state acquired five of these seven cars for eventual use on the Piedmont, said Katie Trout, spokeswoman for the Rail Division. The other two were to be used for mechanical operations, Trout said.
Bidding opened Dec. 15. As of Monday morning, Dec. 21, no one had made an offer for any of the cars through the website, indicating lack of interest or perhaps a desire not to start the bidding too early.
Prospective buyers need to make an appointment to get a closer look at the cars. The seven non-circus cars are stored in the NCDOT rail yard off Capital Boulevard, just north of downtown Raleigh.
The old Ringling Bros. cars, though, are parked on a state-owned rail line in the woods of Nash County. The auction website notes that getting to them requires about one mile of walking on railroad tracks, “with potential for slipping and tripping hazards. Any individuals who wish to access the equipment for inspection do so at their own risk.”
For more information, go to www.ncstatesurplus.com and click on “items on bid” and look for the “railway equipment” category.
This story was originally published December 21, 2020 at 2:42 PM.
